Everything Wrong with AC:Unity in One Mission [Possible Spoilers]


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I wanted to take a minute and examine one of Unity's key missions as I think it shows a great amount of what is wrong with the Assassin's Creed formula as it stands today. Warning: Some people would consider this a spoiler for the 1st and 2nd Assassination missions. You have been warned.

 

Ubisoft made a great deal out of the new assassination missions in Unity leading up to launch, showing footage and talking about the first one you encounter, set in the Notre Dame Cathedral. While this initial mission does seem to set the stage for better missions to follow, I soon learned it was all a big fake and Ubisoft would soon throw everything they attempted to learn out the window.

 

Let's start with the basics. On each assassination mission you are first given a briefing of how many entrances there are, the number of guards, etc. Rather useless info, but not really detracting from the experience. You are then given free rein on how you approach the mission (or so you think). The game encourages you to start off by exploring the area and completing side-objectives. These open up new routes, provide distractions, or unique ways of killing the target. Once you have a plan, its up to you to kill the target in a way you seem fit and escape the area. As I mentioned before, this is all rather well done in the initial mission. The side-objectives fit well and the new routes are actually useful. Once inside the cathedral, there are a variety of routes to get to your target (who paces around the area), and a variety of ways of taking him out and escaping without ever being detected.

 

Now let's talk about the second mission - You are tasked with killing the beggar king, who (after completing a very long tail of one of his henchmen in a previous mission), you find is hiding out in the sewers beneath an old church. On starting the mission, you notice 2 opportunities to complete side-objectives before heading into the sewers.

 

First, you can close off 2 above-ground heating grates that beggars are using to keep warm. Doing this instantly alerts nearby guards, even if they aren't looking at you (who seem to have a major hatred for people covering grates with wood). Once you either kill the guards or somehow distract them enough to cover the grates, the objective completes and you are told that you have "reduced the visibility in the sewers". All well and good right? Not so much, but we'll discuss that in a bit.

 

The second objective is to protect some beggars, who for some reason have decided to take up arms against guards stationed guarding the church. You must kill 4 of the guards before the beggars die to complete this. Not too bad, and once done you are told you "win the support of the beggars", with no other context. What does this do? How does this help? The game doesn't mention.

 

Now, the next move is to head toward the church and find an entrance to the sewers. Before I cover that though, I'd like to mention the in-level challenges that Assassin's Creed added a few games back. These are optional mini-objectives that you can complete during a mission to earn 100% sync of the mission. I've discovered that while a neat idea, these tend to be more annoying then anything now. The one for this mission's beginning was "Air Assassinate 2 Guards". Easy right? Not so, dual air assassinations aren't unlocked until later and all the guards in the area travel in packs of 2. So I had to wander around, air drop on one, fight off the other or flee before I moved on. Annoying for completionists like myself. The second half added "Phantom Blade 2 Enemies". That was much easier and far more appropriate, but still unnecessary.

 

Moving to the church, I took up position on a rooftop and saw two guards exploring a nearby tomb, with a conveniently placed hay wagon next to it. I jumped into the hay (2 feet from the guard who doesn't notice me or the hay exploding next to him) and listen in on the conversation. They mention that the tomb led into the sewers (bingo! entrance found), then they mention they are heading home. In guard speak this seems to mean they are moving 5 feet away and standing awkwardly facing away from the tomb (guess they live there). So the dialog doesn't even line up with what the enemies are doing.

 

Fine, I make my way into the sewers and what I think is going to be another open-ended stealth level (like the cathedral interior) where I get to pick my path and how I want to kill my target. Wrong. The sewers is a massive linear path, with a repeating pattern of connected rooms with guards in them. Sneak through a room, down the hall into another room with guards. Rinse and repeat for about 10 times. This was terrible. Not only was it perfectly linear, ugly, and annoying (messing up kicked you back to the start of the sewers), but it was just boring. Half way through you are given a checkpoint, a glance of your target (and a cut scene of him getting tipped off to your arrival as well), and then sent through 10 more sections of sewer hallways with sleeping/patrolling guards. During this second half you are constantly hearing the guy who tipped off your target yell to the guards to "stay vigilant" or "search over there". I originally though this would require some fun hiding and such from patrols, but nope. Its just voice over with no affect to the standard sewer hallway/rooms with sleeping or not paying attention guards. It made no sense, what-so-ever. You even eventually reach a room with the guy yelling the orders from, alone, and its scripted so you need to dive under a fence to get in, only to watch him slowly back away. Dumb.

 

Once you finally enter the main room with your target, after slugging through the endless hallway, you are met with him yelling to his men about "be prepared, and take cover" over and over and over. His 4 guards are all crouching behind objects and he's on a raised platform with a rifle aiming at the door. Entering the door is met with almost instant death as everyone open fires on you. The only real option is to sneak around the side and climb up to a platform opposite of your target. Here's where the fun begins.

 

There are poles and platforms around the side of the room that obviously look like they are meant to bring you right into close combat (and an awesome air kill) with your target. Unfortunately for you, he spots you the instant you begin swinging and shoots wildly at your position as you attempt to swing to his platform. A few times guards from below opened fire on me as well and once I was killed by the target through a wall. This is all compounded by the fact that you character will attempt to swing into any of the alcoves around the area, leaving you stranded to try and get back on your poles. When you finally reach his platform, you need to duke it out by mashing 'X' and finally stab him with your hidden blade (targets MUST be killed with the hidden blade to proceed).

 

The entire mission was a single linear path that Ubisoft said "You will follow and you will do it our way". It was annoying, poorly designed, and just not fun at all. The complete opposite of what they promised and teased with the first mission.

 

Now, If you're wondering why I failed to mention the 2 sub-objectives here, its that they had no real value in the mission itself. The grates fill the last 2 rooms (after you are done with the target) with smoke, making it slightly easier to escape (from the 3 guards following the same pattern as all the others). And the "support of the beggars" removes the guards from the first 2 rooms in the hallway/room/hallway/room borefest.

 

This mission just screams what is wrong with this series. You give me a massive open world city to play in, then shove me in a linear sewer level for one of the pinnacle missions? Add in the broken immersion from guards and voice over, the bugs and glitches, and the lack of checkpoints and you have a perfect example of why this series needed a reboot, and Unity is not that.

 

 

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I sneaked around behind him and stabbed him in the back.  While I don't hate the game as much as everyone else does (could be due to the fact that I just got a GTX 970 last week and the game runs great) I find it so much better than assassins creed 3 which is the only assassins game I didn't bother finishing.  I think that game put the bar so low that anything is better...

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